


Angular Momentum

by Rustler



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M, McShep Match Challenge 2011
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-27
Updated: 2011-09-27
Packaged: 2017-10-24 02:38:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/257984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rustler/pseuds/Rustler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He doesn't know why now of all times, after all the crazy disasters they've averted, the impossible odds they've beaten, that he seems to have reached his breaking point.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Angular Momentum

**Author's Note:**

> Written for McShep Match Team McKay, prompt was: alive and kicking. Huge thanks to ozsaur for the thoughtful beta notes. This story is better because of you!

Time stretches on the click of an empty gun.

It might be a laughable perception of relativity, but Rodney isn’t worried about that at the moment. All he knows is that in his own personal warp zone of space and time, he’s simultaneously experiencing the realization that he’s about to die, an awareness of the prickle of sweat at his hairline, and filled with a sudden, overwhelming sense of  _regret_ —all within the eyeblink it takes the Genii officer to pull the trigger.

In anther blink it’s clear that the pistol hasn’t actually fired. Rodney exhales in relief, and for one surreal moment, he and the Genii officer simply stare at one another in surprise across the few meters of muddy ground separating them. That won’t last. Under the shadow of his tattered uniform hat, the man who’d almost shot Rodney has a hard, thin face with nothing familiar in its expression. Even after six years on the Atlantis expedition, Rodney still feels a kind of cognitive dissonance at the concept of a complete stranger wanting to  _kill_  him. But this guy is part of the gang that ambushed them, and at the moment he looks as inhuman as a Wraith. Rodney knows he has to act fast before the guy comes up with a Plan B.

“Damn it,” he mutters, trying to regain his wits and remember his training. He’s patting for his own sidearm when something heavy and hard slams into his shoulder, knocking him stumbling sideways.

“Look out!” comes a low shout in his ear, and then there are thick dreads whipping his face and the blurred pattern of Ronon’s forearm tattoo in his vision as a staccato burst of machine gun fire rips through the air where Rodney was just standing.

The Genii officer is still wearing a look of surprise as he crumples to the ground, a lurid red stain spreading across his chest.

“Come on.” Ronon tugs Rodney’s sleeve, urging him to move. Rodney nods numbly and turns to follow just in time to see Sheppard rising from a sniper’s crouch from behind a boulder several yards away. He’s rubbing dirt from his knees and shouldering his P90. Another gunshot sounds and Rodney turns again to see Teyla running toward them, while behind her, one last Genii uniform drops unceremoniously onto the ground.

What started when they left Atlantis that morning as a friendly check-in with some established allies, is now a sober trudge back to the gate. The crude settlement belonging to the farmers they’d come to visit is empty, with no indication as to the fate or whereabouts of the inhabitants.

“Kolya loyalists,” Ronon says darkly, looking over the scene. “There’s pockets of them still around.”

“I heard one of them refer to John as ‘the murderer’, so that does seem likely,” Teyla agrees, holstering her Beretta. “But it doesn’t answer the question of how they knew we were coming here, or what happened to the Dorans.”

Sheppard nods. “Let’s get back to Atlantis. I think it’s time to give Ladon Radim a little call and see if he has any idea what the hell is going on. Nothing more we can do here now, not by ourselves.” Then he turns to Rodney and lowers his voice. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Rodney replies by rote. Then he looks down and sees the body of the man who had almost killed him.

He lies crumpled on his side, cap fallen off, revealing eyes that Rodney can now see are a pale blue, staring blankly up into nothingness. Oddly enough, he looks more human now than he had when he was alive. He’s probably younger than Rodney. The empty pistol is still curled in his lax fingers.

 _Click._

It had been that close. Rodney’s knees threaten to give out from under him, and he swallows down the bile rising in his throat. Sheppard steps closer and takes his elbow until he steadies on his feet.

“Rodney, hey. Are you okay?” Sheppard repeats, more slowly.

Rodney looks up from the dead man to Sheppard. Who hadn’t been out of bullets—today. But what if... one day? One time?

 _Click_. The only difference. It’s that close.

“Fine. I’m fine. Can we get out of here now?” Rodney goes for brusque and dismissive. It’s the best coping strategy he knows. Sheppard watches him a moment longer, eyes narrowed, but he doesn’t call Rodney on the obvious lie.

***

Rodney makes it through the briefing without having to say much—he’s hardly the foremost authority on post-Cowan era Genii military factions, after all. He doesn’t really pay attention, toying with his pen until there’s a break in the conversation.

“I’m sure this is all very fascinating to you people,” he says, rising from his seat. “But unless you require expertise in areas of advanced scientific inquiry? I’ll be getting back to my actual work.”

He avoids Sheppard’s too-keen gaze and flees for the safe haven of the labs for the remainder of the day.

It succeeds in distracting him for a while. Zelenka has a line on some thermal containment problems they’ve had going on the back burner for months. It’s not a project Rodney was particularly interested in before, but right now, a whiteboard full of equations and arrogant shoot-down arguments with the staff are a godsend. He keeps everyone late, prompting suspicious grumbles from Zelenka about Rodney’s newfound fascination with physical plant engineering. But eventually, he has to let people call it a day.

He wanders to the mess for a late supper and spots Teyla and Ronon at the team’s usual table. He feels an odd impulse to just grab a wrapped sandwich and leave before they see him, but then Ronon is waving a fork in the air, calling “McKay!” too loud to pretend he doesn’t hear. He forces a smile and joins them.

“No Sheppard?” he asks, carefully casual, pulling up a seat.

“He’s still meeting with Mister Woolsey and Major Lorne about what happened on Doran today,” Teyla replies, greeting Rodney with a gentle smile of her own.

“Kolya’s guys blame us for everything that’s happened to them. Especially Sheppard,” Ronon adds between chews. Teyla nods agreement and tries to stifle a yawn. Ronon grins at her.

“Torren’s still cutting teeth?”

Teyla’s head droops. “He suddenly seems to have a tremendous number of them.”

Rodney flashes on Teyla’s tidy dispatch of the last rogue Genii who’d ambushed them, and tries to reconcile the memory of that with the exhausted mother of a rambunctious toddler sitting across the table from him. He glances at Ronon, chomping happily on reconstituted mashed potatoes, as though his face hadn’t been streaked with dirt and blood just hours before.

 _Click._   _Click_.

How do they all keep doing this day after day?

  
***

  
The man in his dream looks like he did lying dead on the ground, hatless, and with a dark red stain across his torso. His eyes are pale like beach glass and he stares at Rodney with a slack, expressionless face. He raises his arm and points the empty pistol. Then he turns, and he’s pointing it at Sheppard. Rodney tries to yell a warning, but nothing comes out. The man pulls the trigger.

 _Bang!_

Rodney bolts upright in his bed, shuddering and covered in sweat.

He always thought there was supposed to be reassurance in the knowledge that matter endures. That when all was said and done, that which made up Rodney and that which made up Atlantis, the stars, everything, was one and the same. There was supposed to be beauty in the certainty of it. Elegant and orderly. The stuff of stars.

But when he actually thinks about himself—of Sheppard—gone to component molecules, there’s no peace in that truth at all, only terror. His heart is racing and his brain tumbles in an incoherent rush of  _unacceptable_.

Before he's entirely aware of what he’s doing, he’s clambering out of bed and heading down the hall.

***

Sheppard blinks a couple of times, taking in Rodney’s t-shirt, boxers and bare feet with the kind of sleepy equanimity Rodney has come to expect from him. It manages to make Rodney feel slightly less ridiculous for standing at Sheppard’s door in the middle of the night. But only slightly. Coming here had seemed like the only possible course of action just moments ago in the midst of his panic, but now that he's actually arrived, Rodney isn't sure what to say.

"I, uh... had a bad dream."

Sheppard looks at him another moment, then steps back from the door. “Come on in.” He scratches his chest, and Rodney can see the outline of his dog tags through the worn cotton of his t-shirt.

"I don't even know why I'm bothering you like this," Rodney continues in a rush, feeling more sheepish by the moment as the fog of sleep continues to lift. He's sticky with dried sweat. They're both stubbly, hoarse, and sleep-rumpled. "This is stupid, I mean..."

"Beer?" Sheppard asks, ignoring his ramble, and not even waiting for an answer, he goes to the mini-fridge and pulls out a six-pack.

Rodney stops talking and gratefully accepts the cold can Sheppard presses into his hand. He squeezes his eyes shut. Right. This is why he came here. 

Sheppard sits on the edge of the bed and pops open his beer. "We were all caught off guard today," he says. He pauses, like he might say more, but just takes a long drink from the beer instead.

That suddenly looks like a brilliant idea. Rodney opens his own beer and quickly follows suit, swallowing down half of the can in one go, feeling the cold, effervescent burn spread through his body.

"God, that's perfect," Rodney sighs, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He lets out a belch, and Sheppard laughs at him quietly. “Shut up,” Rodney says, sinking down onto the bed.

“Better?” Sheppard asks.

“Immeasurably,” Rodney replies, taking another sip.

Six months ago, he left Jennifer back on Earth. When people ask about their break up, he usually says something vague about the carte blanche genetic research grant she’d been offered at Johns Hopkins and diverging career paths. Since just about everyone Rodney knows, with the exception of his sister, is a workaholic, that’s usually enough to elicit a sympathetic nod.

He’s pretty sure it wouldn’t have worked even without the complication of Johns Hopkins. Jennifer’s proud of her Atlantis experience, but wanted a more normal life. Rodney knew he couldn’t give it to her.

“How many brushes with death do you suppose we've had?” he asks, passing Sheppard another beer.

Sheppard looks down a moment, then shrugs. “A bunch,” he says finally, pulling back the tab of beer number two with a satisfying hiss-pop. He shoots Rodney a wry smile. “I don't really keep track.”

Rodney nods, silent. Sheppard means the comment to be light, he knows, but he can't take it that way right now. He still feels too strange, too far removed from himself.

 _Don't_ , he wants to say.  _Don't treat your life like it's a joke._  And he doesn't know why now of all times, after all the crazy disasters they've averted, the impossible odds they've beaten, that he seems to have reached his breaking point.

Except then he does know. At  _click_ , he didn’t think of Jennifer.

“The next time someone points a gun at me and pulls the trigger, I don’t want my last feeling to be one of regret,” he hears himself say. The beer can crumples a little in his hand.

“No,” Sheppard says, looking up sharply. He seems almost angry for a moment. “You don’t want that.”

Rodney nods. He doesn’t. He sets his empty can on the bedside table and swallows. The simplest truth is the costliest to admit.

“You make me feel less alone.”

Whatever it is that Sheppard wants from his personal life has always been ambiguous at best, and for a moment, Rodney’s sure he’s made a terrible mistake, given too much away. Sheppard stares down at the floor, not saying anything, and when he moves, Rodney’s not expecting it.

Sheppard leans past Rodney to put his beer can on the bedside table too, then pauses there a moment.

“I’m really bad at this,” he says apologetically. Then Sheppard’s hand is on Rodney’s face, still cold and wet from the beer can. He strokes along Rodney’s jaw, rough yet gentle, caressing and pulling him in. The kiss, when it comes, is awkward for a moment.

What are they doing? Is  _this_  what Rodney was actually trying to set in motion?

“Rodney?” Sheppard breaks off the kiss and pulls back, sounding confused. His eyes are a sleepy, dilated green, and he looks vulnerable in a way Rodney’s never seen before.

Rodney blinks. He could have died today without having this chance. He could have died today without ever having tried. It was that close.

“I’m good, sorry,” Rodney says, smiling and giving Sheppard a playful shove down onto the bed. “I just wanted to look at you.”

Their whole solar system could be obliterated right now and from Earth, from the world Rodney once knew, it would seem like nothing more than the winking of a distant star -- one pinprick dimmed among millions in the night sky.

It would be utterly insignificant. Except that wouldn’t be true at all.

-END-


End file.
